This chapter develops the argument that deportability, as it applies to participants in a temporary migrant work program (TMWP) permitting circularity, is an essential condition of possibility for migration management. Under this paradigm, TMWPs—such as the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP)—which are perceived to represent “best practices” by, for example, offering participants the prospect of return, simultaneously sustain this approach to governing migration and represent its limit, including in contexts in which unionization is permissible. The legal struggle of SAWP employees of Sidhu & Sons to unionize, secure a first collective agreement, and maintain bargaining unit strength gives substance to these claims. It reveals how deportability is lived among temporary migrant workers and the central modalities through which it functions. As such, these SAWP employees' experience provides rich empirical evidence for a grounded critique of migration management revealing that, despite its call for “regulated openness,” this global policy paradigm introduces new modes of control.
